Amir Khan claimed that a scorecard in his controversial defeat by Lamont
Peterson in Washington last month was “interfered with” by a mysterious
figure at ringside.

Khan used several Twitter messages to allege that the World Boxing Association supervisor, Michael Welsh, was being disturbed and interrupted round after round by a man sitting to his left and that the scoring for the fight - which Khan lost narrowly on points - was “dodgy”.

In a string of almost 30 tweets, Khan also posted pictures of the unidentified figure sitting near Welsh, where he can clearly be seen picking up the yellow score ticket and interrupting Welsh, which is against fight rules.

“Who is this guy?” Khan asked on the social networking site. “What was he doing? Will be interesting to see if we get our answer.

"I want Michael Welsh to speak out about what was going on. It’s only right and fair to do so. I knew there was something dodgy with the scoring.”

The IBF is holding a hearing into the fight on Jan 18 but insisted that “the master scorecard was not tampered with in any way”.

Khan’s sense of injustice was shared by Richard Schaefer, the chief executive of his promoter, Golden Boy, who claimed there were inconsistencies in the scoring.

“Lamont Peterson fought a very good fight,” he said. “This is absolutely not about taking anything away from him. It is simply to look at the facts and do the right thing.

"There was clearly controversy after the fight on this scoring. The time it took for tabulating this card and announcing the decision was very strange.

“And what happened with the IBF master scorecard? When I talked to Lindsay Tucker, the IBF official, he said that the IBF supervisor who was there told him it disappeared. It seems to him the District of Columbia took it while he was in the ring presenting Peterson with the belt.

“Then suddenly, two days ago, an IBF scorecard appeared but it looks as if it was made up after the fact. The printing was way too neat and consistent, not what a scorecard usually looks like.” However, Tucker said: “We looked at the scorecards and we could see nothing wrong with them.”

A WBA spokesperson added: “We are not aware of this situation but there is an appeal from Golden Boy Promotions for a rematch in the hands of the lawyers at the WBA.”